1. Technical Field
One or more embodiments of the present invention relate to a screen printing machine including a paste supply apparatus which ejects and supply paste on a mask from a paste pot, and a screen printing method.
2. Background Art
JP-A-2010-172928 describes a paste supply apparatus which supplies paste on a mask for a screen printing. The past supply apparatus ejects and supplies the past directly from a commercially-available paste pot which stores the paste in a tubular container. In the paste supply apparatus, the paste pot is held such that a through hole formed in a bottom portion of the container faces downward, and the paste is directly ejected by using an ejecting member. In the above-described type of the paste supply apparatus which directly ejects the paste by the ejecting member, attachment of the ejecting member so as to firmly contact an inner wall of the container requires time and effort. Therefore, there is another type of the paste supply apparatus which causes the ejecting member to press down an inner lid.
In the paste supply apparatus of this type, after the paste in the container is used up, exchange of the empty paste pot for a new paste pot is required. For this reason, the paste supply apparatus may be provided with a detector which detects a state in which the ejecting member reaches a predetermined pressing-down limit position in the container, and when the detector detects the state in which the ejecting member reaches the pressing-down limit position in the container, the ejecting member is pulled upward out from the container so as to exchange the paste pot.